


Tramontane

by Spylace



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-13 15:23:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/825851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spylace/pseuds/Spylace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's never wise to piss off a deity.</p><p>(Semi-spoilers for STID)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tramontane

There was something peculiar about Kirk’s doctor he couldn’t quite put a finger on. At first, when they were introduced, Khan thought the other man a warrior of a kind or the chief inquisitor. His willingness to offer his blood hadn’t been compliance but a test.

McCoy was professional as he drew his blood, admirable in the face of the fact that the man was built to preserve life while he had taken more than fifty lives in less than twenty-four hours. Once Kirk left the room to mull over his words, he took a tentative sniff of his arm, unsure of what he might find, the tiny pinprick at his elbow already scabbed over.

He smelled nothing out of the ordinary, perhaps a hint of something sweet like honey brushed over his sleeve like a woman’s perfume. He puzzled over it, all the while planning a method of escape.

Six men surrounded him, their phasers set to stun. But the doctor gave him a sideways glance as though he somehow knew what he was thinking. “Don’t. Even.”

Khan offered the other man a thin smile.

“I was not aware that you possessed telepathy doctor.”

McCoy snorted

“I don’t, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what you’re thinking.”

He nodded toward the security, gesturing with a broad sweep of his hand. “If you think you can take them, you’re probably right.” An officer bristled to his right but was immediately cowed beneath the doctor’s glare. “We have no idea what your limits are or what you’re even capable of but believe me boy, you do not want to mess with me.”

His spine straightened, unyielding as a steel rod.

“An interesting choice of words.”

The doctor busied him with other matters, having sent his nurses away when he came.

“In my eyes, you’re all a bunch of infants. Now I should send y’all home for your mamas to spank but I can’t.” McCoy turned around, his lips creased into a displeased frown. “So sit your ass down and stay down.”

The threat was heavily implied. Though unable to fathom what the doctor could do what others could not, Khan couldn’t help but feel intrigued and a modicum of _anticipation_ jump through his veins.

He barely suppressed a flinch.

When Kirk came to him with an alliance, he agreed not because he feared for the destruction of his crew but because of McCoy. Marcus knew of his worth but the doctor was dangerous in a way he couldn’t explain. He had been groomed to be the next great conqueror and the sudden reversal of power left him anxious and afraid, hardly a vice to imbibe in.

The tribble stirred and cooed from the table, dead one moment then alive the next. Khan knew his body, remembered every scalpel and needle that touched his flesh, the result of every single test involving the transfusion of his life’s blood into something else.

He was made to be superior to his human forebearers; his blood cured diseases, defeated cancer and in some cases imbued the lesser species with temporary strength. But what the doctor had done was a certain impossibility. The dead was dead. As regrettable as it might have been, not even his blood could revoke that word.  

And yet the tiny ball of fur thrilled to everyone else’s fascination. McCoy stared up at him defiant, as though daring him to challenge his conclusion. It made his retreat that much quicker.

 

Khan woke up half-inside the cryotube, seeing the doctor dressed all in white. The other man, no, maybe not just a _man_ , did not bat an eye as he scribbled across his PADD and produced a vial.

He was clinical in his ministrations, never deliberately cruel. But his touch was cold when it pressed up against the side of his neck and drew his blood, the scent of honey clinging to his fingers.  

“You’re not human.”

“Neither are you.”

“Why do you persist in this charade?” He asked. The drugs he had been given were strong. He could barely lift a finger. “Are you not proud of what you are?”

This gave McCoy a pause.

“You think I’m an augment.”

It was a strange thought, the possibility of McCoy being something other than the product of Earth. His eyes drooped but his voice remained clear as he asked, “Aren’t you?”

“No” The doctor said frankly, leaning over and laying a hand over where his heart sang deep inside his ribs. “In your words, I’m better— _at everything_.”  

The doctor had the vial of his blood in one hand but did not turn to move. Instead, he takes another vial, this one empty, and pushed it against the crook of his wrist, filling it with amber-gold liquid.

“I could strip the augment right off your bones.” He said idly and Khan froze, unable to describe the terror welling up within him. “After all, is there anything you wouldn’t do for your self-prescribed family?”

Khan thought that he must be hallucinating when an eagle’s shadow fell across his berth, sunlight spilling down in a place with no windows.

“But I made a promise.” McCoy growled darkly, “and unlike some people, I take my vows very seriously.

The cryotube hissed as it closed, cold air soaking in his pores. He took a deep breath, trying to starve off the inevitable.

The last thing Khan saw was a blond man, fairer than Kirk but with the savagery of a man, a bow in one hand and a fistful of arrows in the other, his moss-green eyes chasing him down into the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Could you exposition any harder Bones? Also, I don't really buy the deus ex machina of Khanberbatch's wonderblood. 
> 
> So I replaced it with an actual god via Cupid!McCoy :D


End file.
